


The Square Root of Imaginary Numbers

by GoddessofBirth



Series: Factoring Out Binomials [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, First Time, Frotting, M/M, Overtones of all kinds of things, Smut, Stalking, Unintentional relationships, ambiguous hints of ambiguous things, depending on if you live in Beacon Hills or not, or creepering, spoilers for episode 2 x 05, when the cat's away...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:26:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Stiles kisses Isaac, neither one of them expects it.  In which the battle of stalker vs. stalkee has an unintended outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Square Root of Imaginary Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing this pairing, so, you know, the next one should be better.

The first time Stiles kisses Isaac, neither of them expect it. Isaac has been...looming...creepering around Stiles ever since the Battle of Alpha Hill, as Stiles likes to call the night Derek recognizes Scott as an Alpha in his own right, recognizes Stiles and Allison as worthy adversaries. Stalking Stiles, for lack of a better word, because Derek thinks Stiles knows things, somehow thinks Stiles is actually going to give up information. Stiles knows this, because he confronts Derek angrily about it one day, while the Alpha is doing is _own_ creepering at the lacrosse field, making sure his underdeveloped pack doesn't rip some poor team player's head off.

 

Which is a little hilarious, considering Derek had been perfectly prepared to kill any number of them less than four weeks ago. And Stiles has had it,  _had_ it, because even though Isaac is suited up, is playing, he still somehow manages to be stay in Stiles' radius of awareness, so he pushes himself off the bench, marches over to Derek and shoves his finger right in his face, demands to know why the hell he's rated his very own creeper. And so Derek tells him, smirks and doesn't even try to hide that he's apparently waiting for Stiles to crack, to make a mistake and give him the intel he needs to do whatever weird, black hat thing he's planning to do.

 

The fucked up thing is, Stiles can't even do anything about it. Not without getting his dad involved, or causing a flare up between the packs; breaking the detente they've somehow worked themselves into. Scott  _will_ go to war for him, tells him so flat out when Stiles mentions Isaac's presence outside his house, but they're walking on too much thin ice as it is, balancing between Derek and Gerard and mythological monsters who apparently spring up like broken slinkies these days. He can't bring himself to be the cause of more blood, just because he's somehow joined the ever growing number of people on the douchepack watchlist.

 

So, Isaac is just...there. When Stiles looks out of his window in the morning, he's leaning against the oak tree in the back yard. When Stiles is at the Beacon Hills library, he'll turn around in the stacks, and Isaac will be lounging against a far wall, chewing gum and examining his nail beds before looking up and smirking that nasty, superior smile that makes Stiles want to kick the ever living shit out of him. He half suspects Isaac actually sleeps in his backyard, because once or twice, as he stumbles through his darkened room to take a middle of the night piss, he glances out the window, only to see Isaac sitting cross-legged by the fence. He can never tell if his eyes are opened or closed though.

 

The only time he doesn't see Isaac is when his dad is home, but he assumes he's still lurking close, because the one time he tries to use the opportunity to sneak out, he's less than two miles down the street before Isaac pulls in behind him, driving the red Mercedes that has somehow become douchepack car number two. He doesn't know why none of their neighbors ask his father about the teenager perpetually hanging out in their backyard, but he suspects it's because they're used to the kids his father brings home on a semi-regular basis, to have a few home cooked meals and a safe bed before they're shuffled back into the system or to a relative somewhere. Stiles assumes this is a prime example of no good deed going unpunished, although hell, who knows – it's not like anybody ever calls the cops on Derek's even  _more_ obvious appearances in locker rooms and bathrooms and underneath bleachers.

 

Isaac even manages to magically convince Mr. Harris to make Stiles his permanent lab partner, so what should have been eight hours of freedom is interrupted by Isaac sitting next to him, making jackass threats while Stiles gives sarcastic rejoinders. Both of their chemistry grades rise to high 'A's by the end of the semester.

 

A week or so after Isaac first starts his stalker routine, Stiles is laying in bed. It's late, and his father is pulling an overnight, so his hand idly drifts down his stomach and to the waistband of his pajama pants, mind going to thoughts of Lydia, and the one kiss she'd given him before firmly moving back into the Jackson camp. He freezes in the act of pulling his pants down his hips, remembering werewolf ears and werewolf noses.

 

His jaw hardens stubbornly. If Derek insists on having one of his minions invade every second of Stiles' privacy, then Isaac deserves what he gets. He jumps up from the bed and opens his window wide, then returns and strips his pants off, lays back down. And he's  _loud_ , louder than he normally would be, home alone or not, making sure every little squeak and groan is annoyingly, embarrassingly (for Isaac – Stiles decides he has no reason to be ashamed of doing exactly what it should be his right to do) vocal. He thinks of Lydia, of how she'd looked stumbling into the headlight glare from the woods, of her lips and her eyes and then vaguely of how she and Jackson might look together. But mostly he just concentrates on the feel of his palm against his dick, the slide of spit slick skin on skin.

 

He comes, uses the tissues on his nightstand to clean up, and after reclaiming his pants, walks over to the window and sticks his head out. He flips Isaac off, for once being the smirker instead of the smirkee, and slams the window closed. He can't tell for sure, but he thinks the werewolf looks a little shell shocked.

 

Stiles is normally noisy – it comes with the territory of being an ADHD ridden klutz, but now he does everything loud. He jacks his speakers up to the highest setting, he sings along to the music at the top of his lungs. He types loud, he dresses loud, he sits on the floor by the window and reads aloud – school books, comics, random research he's doing for Scott,  _New Moon_ ,  _Eclipse_ , and  _Breaking Dawn_ , making sure to make appropriate noises of disgust at all the Jacob parts. He does anything and everything he can to be just as annoying as possible, in as passive aggressive a way as possible. Usually, when he checks, eyes just peeping over the window sill, there's no reaction at all, other than a sneer and an eye roll, but since he doubts Isaac knows how to make any other expression these days, he still counts it as a win.

 

Some days, when he's especially bored, he lobs lacrosse balls and tennis balls out the window, yelling  _fetch_ as his only warning. Generally, they fall far short, but the ones that don't, Isaac catches one handed, rolls his lip back to show fang, and then returns to whatever he was doing.

 

Sometimes that's homework. He sits under the oak tree, books open in front of him and notebook on lap. Apparently dislike of school work isn't actually a werewolf trait, it's just a Scott trait, because after the whole kanima situation is dealt with, he's never seen Isaac turn in a single assignment late. 

 

Sometimes it's eating, and holy hell, if he didn't hate Isaac so much, he'd weep for his diet, because it seems to consist of nothing but junk food, in the most teenage of ways possible. Potato chips, and Twizzlers, and a definite preference for Twix. Instead, he makes pointed comments at the lab table about all the various diseases and disorders that develop from never eating vegetables, and Isaac snarls and flashes eyes and says it's a good thing he's a werewolf then, following up with some rote Isaac style death threat that he obviously thinks is funny and Stiles doesn't even actually hear anymore. At least he's not a litterer. Stiles has no idea where all the trash goes, but it's not on the ground. Apparently Isaac is earth conscious.

 

Days pass into weeks tumble into a couple of months, and all in all, Stiles thinks he's handling this stalker vs. stalkee competition pretty well, decides he could probably give tips to a few celebrities about out annoying the person annoying you. After all, Stiles has pretty much built up a lifetime of skills in pissing people off. As far as he's concerned, he's winning.

 

Until he isn't.

 

The dam bursts on a Saturday morning, when his dad is away at work. Stiles wakes up and rolls over, and as soon as he realizes the date, he buries his face in his pillow and breaks down into a loud, desperate sob, his whole body curling in on itself as he shakes and shakes and shakes, tears dripping and snot running freely. It hurts, everything hurts so bad, from the tips of his fingers to the bottom of his feet, and he bites into the pillow case while he wails.

 

He only allows himself this two days of the year: today – his mother's birthday – and the date of the anniversary of her death, and he only allows himself this when his father isn't at home. It's a full thirty minutes before he gets control of himself again, and it's only then that he remembers. Remembers he isn't alone.

 

He vaults up and to the window, and sure enough, Isaac is there, pacing in front of the oak tree, cracking his neck restlessly to the left and right, while he shoves a Twix into his mouth. White hot  _rage_ fills Stiles' head, blocks out reasonable thought, because there's private, and then there is sacred. Stiles' mother is the most sacred thing he has, and Isaac has no right...no right at  _all_ to be sharing in any of those memories. Stiles is  _done_ .

 

He doesn't remember shoving his legs into jeans or jerking a shirt over his head, just finds himself running barefoot down the stairs and storming out the door.

 

' _Get. Out_ ,' he yells, stopping less than a foot from Isaac. 'Get the hell out of my yard, and don't come back. I will call my father, I will call the cops, I will call the goddamn Argents. I will skin your little werewolf ass and hang it from a tree, put your head on a pike; I don't care what Derek says.  _Go the fuck away_ .'

 

Isaac watches his tirade impassively, and then raises one eyebrow. 'Make me.'

 

Stiles hisses and bares his teeth, then, recklessly, swings a fist and connects solidly with Isaac's jaw. 'Out!' He tenses, waits for Isaac's return attack, but Isaac...doesn't do anything. Well, he takes a step back, but other than that, he doesn't react at all. So Stiles swings again, catches the other side of Isaac's face. His head whips back, but still nothing. And that...that really isn't like Isaac at all.

 

It hits Stiles then, and he laughs, ugly and low. 'You can't touch me, can you? Derek's decided you'll all be in deep crap if the sheriff's kid gets hurt in his own back yard, so you've got a hands off order.'

 

'Whatever,' Isaac snorts, which Stiles takes as confirmation, and all he can see is his mother, opening the last crappy present he'd ever gotten her, and all he can smell is his mother, the way she'd smelled in her coffin, sickly sweet and not like her normal smell of fresh baked bread at all, and all he can feel is the film of rage/anger/hurt that drives him to pass it along to someone else.

 

'Well, then, this is gonna really suck for you.' And he punches Isaac again, and again, and again, until he has him backed up against that stupid fucking tree, and Isaac's lip is busted and there's a bruise across his cheek. And he still won't. fucking. leave.

 

Stiles is breathing hard and there's a bead of sweat dripping into his eye. He has to pause to suck in a few gasps of air, use his forearm to wipe across his his face, and it's in that break, when he's gearing up again – because he's not nearly done – that he actually looks at Isaac,  _sees_ him. The corners of his lips are quivering and there's a slight tremble in his jaw. At first Stiles thinks it's because he's trying to hold himself back from shifting, but when he balls up his fist again, Isaac's shoulders give an almost imperceptible twitch, a hunching in.

 

Stiles' stomach drops as the enormity of what he's doing comes crashing in. He's beating the crap out of a kid who had been abused for years by his father, unable to fight back. He's punching a kid in the face who can't fight back again, out of fear of punishment from another authority figure. Stiles isn't stupid enough to think Derek doesn't use physical means to keep his pack in line. His rage winks out, leaving a sour, bitter taste behind. His mother would be so ashamed of him.

 

His hands drop back to his sides. 'Shit...shit. I'm sorry.'

 

Stiles has to hand it to Isaac, he does his best to play the whole thing off, shrugging and smirking. 'What? It's not like you could actually hurt me.' But the haughty conceit isn't perfect now, and the cracks are showing around the corners, where his grin isn't quite so wide, and too much of the whites of his eyes are showing to be perfectly normal.

 

'Shit...no... _fuck_ . Look...Jesus...you've got...you're bleeding...' Sometimes Stiles has words, and sometimes he can't string two syllables together; it's kind of his lot in life to reach for one but get the other, like when he's trying to think of a good lie for his dad, or when he wants to actually answer an essay on the prescribed topic. Now is one of those times, so he stops sputtering and instead takes a step toward Isaac at the same time Isaac takes a step back. But then he's up against the oak tree, and there's nowhere else to go.

 

'Your lip,' Stiles says, by way of explanation, and for some cracked reason, he doesn't let Isaac take care of it himself but reaches out a thumb and tries to wipe the trickle away, purposely ignoring Isaac's flinch. The wound has already healed, but the blood is wet, so he ends up smearing more than he removes; makes a face and wipes his hand on his jeans before licking his other thumb and rubbing at the red staining Isaac's chin. He pushes a little too hard, and his finger slips, somehow ending up pressing into the corner of Isaac's mouth, right at the the seam of his lips.

 

If he'd thought Isaac's eyes were wide before, they're wild now, and he opens his mouth -, to say what, Stiles has no clue, because the second his lips part, Stiles thumb slips inside and rolls across his tongue. If someone were to freeze time and ask him - heck, if someone were to ask him with the benefit of a century to reflect - Stiles wouldn't be able to say what, exactly, causes everything to shift and rearrange into something completely different, but it makes him jerk his thumb from Isaac's mouth, lunge forward, press his mouth against Isaac's.

 

Both of them freeze, sharing air back and forth, and then Stiles feels the tip of Isaac's tongue touch the inside of his lip, for a nanosecond, before retreating. And he's chasing it, chasing it  _hard_ , Isaac pushing back as everything becomes motion, fast and desperate and wet and slick. He can't breath, he  _can't_ and there's hunger curling through every limb when he closes his fingers around Isaac's shoulders, feels the neck of his t-shirt stretch under the stress of his hands. They kiss and they kiss and they kiss, and all Stiles can think is that this is nothing like kissing Lydia, nothing like he imagined kissing anyone would be.

 

Isaac finally pulls back, his lips swollen and red, and his face completely,  _completely_ wrecked, and Stiles wonders if he's ever been kissed at all, because he's shuddering, backed up against the tree and eyes wide and panicked. Stiles doesn't even think, shoves his hands into the maddening curl of Isaac's hair and dives back in, pinning him into the bark and licking his mouth open. Isaac is making noises, and Stiles is making noises, and God he probably freaking sucks at this and maybe Isaac sucks at this, but it feels good, good, good, and then his leg slips in between Isaac's and everything suddenly becomes even better.

 

Isaac's hands dip under his t-shirt and press light against skin; retreat, and then come back harder, fingertips pushing, and Stiles feels the scratch of claws across his sides. He wonders if this is how Allison feels with Scott, if there's that same precipice of fear and lust, or maybe Scott never loses control at all anymore. He starts to make a note to ask her, before realizing there's no way in hell to explain this, to somehow trace the line to making out with the enemy. Although it makes a kind of twisted sense – how could you put two people, two  _teenagers_ in such close proximity to each other, for so long, so that they know every tick the other makes, and not expect this to happen.

 

And maybe Derek is the genius mastermind after all, maybe this was his real plan all along. Erica to break Scott, and Isaac to break Stiles. 

 

He pushes harder into Isaac, rubs his thigh into the space he's made between his legs and ruts up against Isaac's hip in return. Isaac's hands are clawing frantically at his back now, but not for real, not like he actually wants Stiles to move away, because there's no supernatural strength behind it, just fitful pawing and then palms running across the buzz of Stiles' hair, over his cheekbones, sliding around the edges of their mouths and getting tangled up for seconds in the spaces between their lips, wet and sweet and tasting like the Twix he'd seen Isaac eating just before he'd confronted him. 

 

Stiles has seen enough porn to know to keep shifting his thigh against Isaac, to take the motion of his hips against his, and he's young and reckless enough not to care that they're in his backyard, with occupied houses on either side. And he's jacked off plenty enough times to know the sounds someone makes when they're about to come, hears the pleasure-pain noises Isaac makes and echoes them back to him.

 

And they're so close, so close to the good (better? best?) part, and there's nothing but static in Stiles' brain, when Isaac wrenches his mouth away, bangs his head against the tree while his hips continue to jerk restlessly.

 

'Can't...can't...can't,' he mutters. 'Derek won't like it.'

 

And if that isn't frustrating and infuriating by turns. 'What? No consorting with the enemy?' His dick has not gotten the message that funtimes have been interrupted, although that probably has something to do with the fact that Isaac is still stretching and rubbing against him, even while his hands are gouging holes in the tree trunk instead of leaving red lines down Stiles' back.

 

'He just...he just won't like it.' And Stiles thinks there's some sort of meaning there, some hidden message, but swear to God, he does not fucking care what weird shit is going on in Derek's head.

 

'Screw Derek,' he spits out, curling his fingers through the loops on Isaac's jeans and biting at the frantic pulse on his neck. 'What the hell do  _you_ want?'

 

Isaac's nostrils flare, and his head jerks up, and Stiles wonders how long it's been since anyone has bothered to ask him that one question. Isaac grabs Stiles' hands and quicker than he'd thought possible, their positions are reversed, and Isaac has him pinned to the tree, his hands above his head. Isaac's eyes are glowing yellow, and he runs his nose up Stiles' neck, still shaking, still unsteady, but not uncertain.

 

'You like Hawkeye better than Batman, and Witchblade more than both of them. You sing like crap but you listen to some really good bands. You're smarter than you think you are. You should close your shades when you get dressed.' He pulls back and licks at Stiles' jaw.

 

'You taste,' he says, 'like rain. And french fries.'

 

'Curly fries,' Stiles instantly corrects, because there's a world of difference between those little pieces of manna and regular, boring french fries. 'Your diet is crap and you should eat better. You have stupid hair and you're an asshole. You should think about chemist as a career choice, and you don't really want me to close my shades.' Then he presses forward and runs his tongue across Isaac's cheek – if a werewolf can do it, so can he. 'And you taste...' he considers, but really, he is only human, '...like skin. And maybe a little like sap. Were you hugging this tree when I wasn't looking?'

 

'Shut up,' Isaac mutters without heat, and noses behind Stiles' ears, lets go of his hands so he can push Stiles' t-shirt up and slide his thumbs across the waistband of his pants. Stiles takes a minute from hormones to consider time, and location, and how quickly his neighbors might be calling his dad.

 

'We should go inside.'

 

'Yeah?' Isaac's cheeks are red, probably a match to the heat Stiles can feel on his own face. 

 

Stiles nods.

 

'Yeah. Don't tell me you've never creeped in there before?' He would have had to, right? Stiles shoves his hands in his pockets, moves around Isaac and starts toward his back door, which is still hanging open from where he'd stormed out, wondering if Isaac will follow him, or if he's going to run back to Derek after all.

 

But he hears footsteps behind him, and Isaac's reply. 'No. I'm only here when you are.'

 

'Oh. Huh. Okay. Well, here it is.' There's a curious lack of ceremony as they walk up the stairs, and then they're standing face to face in Stiles' room, and he reaches around Isaac to close the door.

 

Everything is both harder and easier now. Harder, because there's intent; it's not an accident, or a moment of mental insanity. If they do this, it's because they choose to, because they  _want_ to.

 

Easier, because Isaac hasn't put his mask back on, and underneath it is that Isaac Stiles vaguely remembers from months ago. He's biting his lip and his eyes are blinking fast, and he keeps swallowing, throat making a nervous sound. Stiles can only imagine he looks something the same.

 

It's harder, and it's easier. Far easier than he thinks it should be. There's some unspoken signal and they both take their shirts off. There are a multitude of scars over Isaac's chest – pre-bite, pre-change, but it doesn't do anything to distract from the unfair amount of muscle that clenches and twitches as Stiles stares. He's about to say something smart ass, something about werewolves and steroids and marketing, but Isaac reaches out a hand and presses it flat across Stiles' stomach, then stops.

 

'Okay,' Stiles says. 'Okay.' Because someone has to make the blind leap, and if there's one thing he's ever been good at, it's always been that. He steps into Isaac, so that their thighs and stomachs and shoulders press together. Isaac is a couple of inches taller, but everything fits together nicely, hits all the right places, and Stiles takes a deep breath, tries not to jump out of his skin, and then -

 

And then Isaac is kissing him, taking the initiative for the first time. A little too hard, a little too rough, for anything approaching innocence, but then again, it's been a long time since either of them had anything close to that. In less time than he would have imagined, they're right back where they were. He pushes Isaac backward, both of them stumbling toward the bed. The back of Isaac's knees catch on the frame and they tumble down, Stiles landing hard on top of Isaac, while Isaac's legs fall open to make an easy bracket for his hips.

 

Stiles feels in control and out of control, skin too tight and face too hot, and he wants to either crawl all over Isaac or crawl  _into_ Isaac, neither of which are totally feasible at the moment, so he settles for a frantic, fast paced thrust of hip against hip, with Isaac grinding and arching up just as fast and uncoordinated to meet him. The naked slide of their upper bodies adds a new dimensions Stiles hadn't been aware of, especially when Isaac's nipple catches against his own, and he can't quite stop the high pitched whine that makes its way up his throat, out of his mouth, and into Isaac's. Because he can't get his mouth away from his, or he doesn't want to get his mouth away from his, and Isaac's teeth are normal and his nails are normal, but his eyes are yellow as sulphur, and  _swear to God_ if Stiles starts popping a boner any time he sees Beta eyes, somebody is going to pay. He doesn't even care that he's going to come in his pants – and he totally is – because Isaac is going to be right there with him, and embarrassingly quickly, if the sounds they're making are any indication.

 

When Isaac hooks his leg around the back of Stiles' knee and arches, it's game over, no more pinballs, take your tickets to the counter and go, and Stiles gasps a pained sound, over something that's as far from painful as possible, and they jerk against each other for a few more seconds as they come down, mutual wet spots on the front of their jeans. Isaac mumbles something completely unintelligible and Stiles collapses down before rolling off of Isaac and onto his back beside him.

 

Gasping breaths fill the silence for several long minutes, until Stiles throws his arm over his eyes and mutters 'Holy Mother of Fuck. So that's a thing that happened.'

 

Another minute and then Isaac says, into the quiet, 'Your shower...can I...I need to before Derek...'

 

Stiles flips to his side to stare at him, which Isaac apparently misinterprets because he immediately backpedals. 'Or not, whatever, there are other places I can go.' His face is starting to get snide again, and ugly, and Stiles pokes him viciously in the chest.

 

'Oh, hell no. Hell to the No. You don't get to do that, not here, okay? I know what your “O” face looks like, buddy.'

 

Isaac  _blushes_ , from the roots of his hair, all the way to where his skin disappears into his pants, the brightest red Stiles has ever seen, and in some sort of sympathetic reaction, he feels his own blush start.

 

'Dude, use the shower, I don't care. I'll even give you clothes, because those? Yeah, a little obvious. Besides, if you go somewhere else, you'll totally miss out on following me to the game, and I know that's your favorite part of the creeper day.'

 

The corners of Isaac's mouth twitch upward and Stiles says casually, “Or, you know, you could just catch a ride with me.”

 

'Jesus,' Isaac sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed. 'You idiot, you really have no idea, do you? Do you actually think we're not allowed to touch you because Derek is worried about your  _dad_ ?”

 

Stiles gapes, unattractively confused. 'What?'

 

Isaac just shakes his head and starts toward the shower. 'No, I can't ride with you to the game.

 

Well, Stiles always has suspected Derek is a complete control freak with his pack, and apparently that extends to picking and choosing who his pack can and can't date/screw/frot/whatever the hell just happened. What the hell did just happen?

 

Stiles doesn't have an answer, so his mind obligingly changes the subject.

 

By the time Isaac returns, towel wrapped low around his waist and lips still raw – and wow, once Stiles turns it on, it apparently doesn't want to turn off – Stiles has rounded up a pair of jeans that are just a little too long on him and a t-shirt that he hasn't worn since before all the werewolf bullshit started. Isaac is watching him intently, and when his eyes land on Stiles' still damp crotch, they flicker gold, just for a second, before settling back down.

 

_Oh._

 

'So, yeah...clothes...' he points to the pile on the bed. 'I'm just gonna...you know....yeah...' He vague gestures toward the bathroom and picks up his own stack, scooting around Isaac and sprinting down the hall.

 

He expects Isaac to be long gone by the time he gets done – or at least long gone to the backyard – but he's crouched by Stiles' window, picking through the stack of books there. Stiles has time to dump the dirty clothes – both his and Isaac's – into his hamper, before Isaac says anything.

 

'Why were you - ' he points at his eyes, in lieu of finishing the sentence.

 

Stiles' gut clenches and he swallows compulsively, then forces the words out. 'Today was my mom's birthday.'

 

Isaac nods. 'I don't like when you do that.' Before Stiles can process what it  _means_ , he's pulled a book from the stack and is looking past Stiles, toward the hall. 'I take Milk Duds to my mom's grave on her birthday. I didn't this year.'

 

'You should still do it.'

 

'Yeah.' Which could mean he will, or he won't, or anything in between, because everything is zipped up and hidden again, but for some reason Stiles doesn't feel shut out. It's more like Isaac is preparing for something, something that requires that look of blank, amused delight in the inferiority of everyone around him.

 

He says carefully, 'You know, Scott did just fine as an Omega, until he found the right pack.'

 

“Yeah, I know.” He holds up the book so that Stiles can see the cover. “You should read this one next time.” And lately, since reading means more or less speaking loudly in the direction of the backyard, Stiles understands he's being given a request. It's Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_.

 

Isaac stands and gestures at the door. “I'm gonna go.” He walks past him, his hand brushing against Stiles', fingers tangling together just long enough for Stiles to know it's deliberate. “I'll see you at the game.”

 

Stiles hears the backdoor shut as he stares at the empty room, at the book sitting crooked on the top of the pile, at the tangle of sheets on the bed.

 

“Yeah, see you at the game,” he finally says, moving across the room to grab his lacrosse bag and his shoes. 

 

He's not surprised when, fifteen minutes later, he looks in his rearview mirror and sees the flash of red Mercedes behind him. He sticks his hand out the window and flips the driver off, then grins when Isaac shows his teeth and returns the gesture.

 

 

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Factoring Out Binomials - Fanart/Graphic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/483996) by [stilesonskis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilesonskis/pseuds/stilesonskis)




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